Treatment of material containing organic esters of cellulose



Patented Oct. 9, 1934 TREATMENT ORGANIC Camille Dre Whitehea CelaneseCorp of Delaware No Drawing. Application Sep Serial No. 304,809

8 (Jlaims.

This invention relate's'to the treatment of materials such as yarns,filaments, bristles, films, fabrics, etc., made of or containing organicderivatives of cellulose in such amanner as to delustre or render thesame more opaque without causing the same to crinkle;

An object of our invention is to reduce the lustre or increase theopacity of materials containing organic esters of cellulose in such aman- 10 ner that they do not crinkle or otherwise become distorted.Other objects of our invention will appear from the following detaileddescription.

Textile materials such as yarns, fabrics and the like containing organicderivatives of cellulose may be rendered more opaque and their lustremay be reduced by subjecting the same to the action of boiling water orwet steam. However, if the textile material is subjected to suchagencies in the ordinary manner they tendto 2o crinkle, warp orotherwise become distorted. We have found, however, that such materialsare subjected to the delustring agency while they are under tension, thetendency to crinkle or I warp reduced or overcome.

In accordance with our invention, we subject the material made of orcontaining organic esters of cellulose to the action of an agent thattends to reduce the lustre and/or increase the opacity of the organicester of cellulose material While such material is under a tension 'orstress.

The material to be treated in accordance with our invention may befilaments or yarns such as are used in making fabric. Moreover thefabric itself may be treated advantageously by our process. An importantapplication of our invention is the treatment of bristles or artificialhorse hair such as are used in hair brushes or clothes brushes, sincebristles of reduced lustre but which are straight are required for thiswork. Also 40 films, fibres or other filaments may be treated by ourinvention if so desired. v

The organic ester of cellulose of which the material is composed orwhich the material contains, may be any suitable one, examples of whichare cellulose acetate, cellulose formate, cellulose propionate' orcellulose butyrate.

The delustring agency employed may be any suitable one. However, forease ofapplication we prefer wet steam or boiling water. The boilingwater may contain other substances such as soap, salts, acid salts,acidsand particularly aliphatic carboxylic acids, such as acetic acid orformic acid which either increase, decrease or have no. efiect upon therate of delustring.

The time of treatment of the organic ester yfus, New York, d,Cumberland,

oration of America, a corporation OF MATERIAL CONTAINING ESTERS 0FCELLULOSE N. Y., and William Md, assignors to tember 8, 1928,

cellulose material may be varied in accordance with the effect desired.A short treatment merely increases the opacity while longer treatmentsalso affect the optical smoothness of the material and reduce the lustrethereof. Depending upon 3 the time of treatment the lustre may beslightly reduced or the material may be completely delustred. When wetsteam is employed-it is preferable to first dampen them or wet thematerial to be treated with water prior to treatment with wet steam inorder to promote uniform delustring.

The material undergoing the delustring treatment may be subjected totension or stress in any suitable manner. In one form of carrying outthe process weights may be suspended from the material while it is beingsubjected to the delustringagency. In another form, the yarns, fabrics,films or bristles to betreated may be wound from reel to reel undertension while. being drawn through the delustring agency. The load-ortension on the material obviously should not exceed that of the breakingload. By way of example it may be stated that a load of l gram for every50 denier-of yarn or bristle, and a corresponding load for film orfabric is quite suitable.

The yarns, bristles, films, etc., may be subjected to the delustringprocess directly after their formation in a spinning machine or on afilm wheel, being passed from the feed rollers or wheels of the formingmachine directly through steam chests or boiling baths under tension.

The yarns, fabrics, bristles or films after having been subjected to theprocess of our invention are relatively opaque and have a reduced lustreranging from a slight delustring to complete delustring'. Because of thetension under which they have been subjected while being treated theyare free of crinkling, curling, warping or other distortions. 95

In order further to illustrate our invention the following specificexamples are given without limiting the scope thereof.

Example I A hank of artificial bristles of 100 denier which bristlesconsist of an acetone soluble cellulose acetate having an acidyl valueof 54.5% is treated.

A hank weighing 320 grams is hung in a steam chest, preferably afterwetting, but not necessarily so, and is subjected to the action-of wetsteam at 80 C. for 10 minutes. The hank is suspended on a bar whichpasses under the upper end there* of. Another bar is suspended from thelower end no of the hank and this bar is loaded with a weight of 10kilograms.

By this process an opaque bristle suitable for hair brushes, etc., witha reduced lustre is obtained which bristle is free of any distortion,crinkling, etc.

Example II The procedure of Example I is repeated substituting, however,a yarn of 150 denier containing 26 individual filaments, which yarn isspun from a similar cellulose acetate.

By this process an opaque yarn of subdued lustre and entirely devoid ofcrinkling or otherdistortion is obtained. This yarn is capable of beingwound from hank to bobbin, pirn or other package, without the constantcatching or breaking that otherwise occurs if the yarn is delustred inthe ordinary manner and not under tension.

By repeating this process but increasing the time of steaming to 30minutes, a yarn is obtained that is smooth and undistorted and has anopaque and matte appearance.

It is to be understood that the foregoing detailed description is givenmerely by way of illustration and that many variations may be madetherein without departing from the spirit of this invention.

Having described our invention what we claim and desire to secure byLetters Patent is:

1. Process of producing at least partially delustered yarns containingorganic esters of cellulose which comprises suspending the yarns in hankform, attaching weights to said hanks and subjecting the hanks totheaction of a hot aqueous delustering medium while thus tensioned so asto prevent crinkling.

2. Process of producing at least partially delustered yarns containingcellulose acetate which comprises suspending the yarns in hank form,attaching weights to said hanks and subjecting the hanks to the actionof a hot aqueous delustering medium while thus tensioned so as toprevent crinkling.

material, suspending the same in hank form, attaching weights to saidtextile material and subjecting the textile material to the action of ahot aqueous delustering medium while thus tensioned so as to preventcrinkling,

4. Process of producing at least partially delustered textile materialcontaining cellulose acetate which comprises wetting the textilematerial, suspending the same in hank form, attaching weights to saidtextile material and subjecting the textile material to the action of ahot aqueous delustering medium while thus tensioned so as to preventcrinkling.

5. Process of producing at least partially delustered yarns containingorganic esters of cellulose which comprises wetting the yarns,suspending the same in hank form, attaching weights to said hanks andsubjecting the hanks to the action of a hot aqueous delustering mediumwhile thus tensioned so as to prevent crinkling.

6. Process of producing at least partially delustered yarns containingcellulose acetate which comprises wetting the yarns, suspending the samein hank form, attaching weights to said hanks and subjecting the hanksto the action of a hot aqueous delustering medium while thus-tensionedso as to prevent crinkling.

7. Process of producing at least partially delustered yarns containingorganic esters of cellulose which comprises suspending the yarns in hankform from a rod, passing another rod through the bottom of the hanks,attaching a weight to said lower rod so as to impart tension to theyarns in the hanks and subjecting the hanks to the action of a hotaqueous delustering medium while thus tensioned so as to preventcrinkling.

8. Process of producing at least partially delustered yarns containingcellulose acetate which comprises suspending the yarns in hank form froma rod, passing another rod through the bottom of the hanks, attaching aweight to said lower rod so as to impart tension to the yarns in thehanks and subjecting the hanks to the action of a hot aqueousdelustering medium while thus tensioned so as to prevent crinkling.

CAMILLE DREYFUS. WILLIAM WHITEHEAD.

